Knicks Morning News (2019.05.20)

Wizards coach Scott Brooks recently finished his third season with Washington and 10th season as an NBA head coach, reaching a full decade in the position and achieving a goal that very few coaches have done today. Brooks guided the Wizards through a tumultuous, injury-plagued season and finished with a 32-50 record, causing some around […]

KnicksÂ presidentÂ Steve Mills broke his silence last week but declined to address whether the team will look to trade its lottery pick in a deal for disgruntled New Orleans star Anthony Davis, as relayed by Marc Berman of the New York Post. The Knicks were awarded the No. 3 pick from the NBA’s Draft Lottery, something […]

The possibility of Kevin DurantÂ signing with the Knicks overshadowed all other topics as NBA executives gathered this week for the annual combine, relays Steve Popper of Newsday. He states that most of those in attendance consider it a “fait accompli” that the Warriors’ star will be coming to New York when free agency begins in […]

Wizards coach Scott Brooks recently finished his third season with Washington and 10th season as an NBA head coach, reaching a full decade in the position and achieving a goal that very few coaches have done today. Brooks guided the Wizards through a tumultuous, injury-plagued season and finished with a 32-50 record, causing some around […]

KnicksÂ presidentÂ Steve Mills broke his silence last week but declined to address whether the team will look to trade its lottery pick in a deal for disgruntled New Orleans star Anthony Davis, as relayed by Marc Berman of the New York Post. The Knicks were awarded the No. 3 pick from the NBA’s Draft Lottery, something […]

The possibility of Kevin DurantÂ signing with the Knicks overshadowed all other topics as NBA executives gathered this week for the annual combine, relays Steve Popper of Newsday. He states that most of those in attendance consider it a “fait accompli” that the Warriors’ star will be coming to New York when free agency begins in […]

Tsai, the new owner of the Liberty and part owner of the Nets, has made a fortune as a founder of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. He’s hoping his skills can produce needed revenue for the W.N.B.A.

The Knicks will begin private draft workouts Monday at their Tarrytown headquarters, and the first one up is also the tallest: 7-foot-7 Tacko Fall, The Post has learned. The gargantuan Central Florida big man is coming off a rousing draft combine in Chicago, to which he was not even invited at the start. Fall needed…

132 comments on “Knicks Morning News (2019.05.20)”

As much as I love Frank, I have a hard time imagining him becoming a better player than someone like Al-Farouq Aminu or LRMaM – 3/D guys that are available in general at the MLE or even much less — and even if he does so, it’d be on his second contract and not on his first contract that that happens. I think the absolute ceiling for him is George Hill, who even at his best is quite overpaid on his current contract.

I think I’d still rather trade DSJ (assuming Kyrie or some such player is coming in FA) because DSJ is pretty duplicative with said player, but I wouldn’t be sad if Frank is dealt. If the cost of retaining Trier and Dotson is letting Frank go (we would also get a pick back), then so be it.

I believe Frank will be better this year, but probably not for us. He still has potential, but even if he is better, he’s not the sort of player Knick’s management likes. He is very unlikely to be great, even if better, so it’s not a catastrophe if he goes.

We’ve done this before, guys. If he had shot 36% to this point in his career, he’d have a whopping .455 TS%. If we gave him Kyle Korver’s all-time record for 3PT% in a season (.536), his TS% would still come out to below league average (.545).

People really need to get used to the idea that this dude has way deeper issues than not being able to shoot. Specifically, he can’t really do anything else either.

Frank shot 37% from 2pt, and he got to the line 1.2 times per 36 minutes last year. He’s a terrible offensive player. I don’t get the endless eye squinting at Frank, I don’t know why we pretend that there’s a super useful player in there hiding behind the sub-.400 eFG%.

I would not be surprised if we got a late first/early 2nd for Frank.
1. He’s still just 20 and was a top-ten pick.
2. You could excuse other teams for thinking the Knicks have screwed him up thus far.
3. A lot of teams could use a good, switchable, situational defender (that can pass pretty well) to come in and lock down wings while giving the starters a breather (10-15 min a game?)
You could probably get a vet defender a little cheaper than him, but the minor potential is worth a #25 – #50 pick and the extra salary, especially to a team that just needs another luxury piece or two. I could see the Warriors doing it if they have the cap space.

Yeah, I’d probably pass on his in the late first just because of team need, and he’s not likely to be even close to a Boban, who is supremely productive but I admit unplayable against modern lineups with like 4 wings.

I would be much more inclined to pick up a high-production upperclassman (no projects, please) in the late 20s than take a guy who absolutely cannot play next to Mitch. At this point, I would not draft another center unless he were a Towns-level talent with excellent trade value. The team needs ball handlers and wings.

I’m typically a BPA guy for Knicks drafting, but that’s mostly because the Knicks never have enough good players to draft on positional fit over pure production.

Call me crazy, but there is no way in hell that the Warriors are trading for a guard or wing who can’t handle or shoot the ball. You can get away with being a poor shooter (Dray, Iguodala) if you are a master of transition offense or motion passing. You can get away with having a mediocre handle (Klay) if you can shoot. You can’t lack both of those things in their offense. They’d basically be getting a worse version of Pat McCaw. Far worse, and McCaw isn’t very good to begin with.

I mean, we’re honestly probably better off trading Frank for a 2nd rounder anyway, maybe to Dallas for the #37 (they supposedly liked him) so you take less salary back and have more control over the player (in case you find another Mitch).

I’ve supported Barrett more than most, but I’d most likely be good with a trade-down scenario. For the 2 (or 3?) Hawks picks might be too much to ask, but if Cleveland really wants him, and we really prefer Culver and don’t think the Lakers will take him, we could do #3 for #5 and #26. Culver and Saminic/Okeke would be a nice draft.

I’m trying to figure out who would want Ntilikina. Besides the Mavericks, who seem to like him, the only likely candidate I can think of is the Washington Wizards. They need young prospects and he would fit in well next to Beal, at least as well as he would fit in anywhere.

Look, the kid is still 20 years old and we talk about him as if his complete and total failure in the NBA has already been determined. We might not be on the reasonable side of this argument.

There are probably teams willing to take a flier on him, especially if they trust their player development system. Brooklyn, for instance, makes sense. They have the 27th pick (from Denver) and the 31st pick (from us). Those seem too high. But Frank and a future 2nd for one of those picks seems reasonable.

I think the best shot the Knicks have of trading Frank is the other GM thinking “it’s New York, they botched the kid’s development because they’re a mess, we can do better”. Which is funny because that’s what the Knicks tried to do with guys like Mudiay, Vonleh and Hezonja, and it kinda failed. But they should definitely be shopping everyone not called Robinson on the roster anyway.

Frank will never be an NBA player. Not every 20-year-old improves enough to be a starter. He never should have been in the league to begin with.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 12:13 pm

Frank is being badly misused. Last year they were trying to develop him and make him into a more aggressive player that penetrates, scores, and makes plays off the dribble. That’s kind of like asking Steve Novak to create for himself and shoot off the dribble or asking Mitchell to start shooting turn around off balance jumpers from mid range. It’s going wreak havoc on their efficiency because they don’t have that skill at an adequate level to even consider it.

We all agree that Frank doesn’t do anything particularly well as a scorer. He even declined at the rim relative to his rookie year (most likely because he was trying to create shots he could not complete). Wherever he plays, they have to start from zero.

He’s a team oriented plus defender that can switch and a good and willing passer.

The idea is to add a spot up 3 and allow him to play off other players until he’s hitting shots like that at a 35% clip or better and not try to do much else. Then you are getting the pluses without the enormous downside of him taking shots he’s not any good at.

Each year his team should try to add something new to his arsenal.

But you can’t have him driving and shooting mid range, posting up smaller players, creating off the dribble etc.. like last year and expect his TS% to rise to adequate levels given where he is now. That was a total shit show and misuse by Fizdale and Knicks in his development.

We know here his talents and potential lies. He’s a project on offense. Baby steps.

If you look at it from a pure value standpoint, he’s probably as likely to succeed as most new second picks would be, but he does cost more than them. From the Knicks point of view a late second pick is probably just buyable. It’s also not worth much to them because it’s not much more likely to produce value than just finding a free agent. So I don’t see why they would do that deal. An early second rounder would be worth it, but I don’t see that happening.

Frank is being badly misused. Last year they were trying to develop him and make him into a more aggressive player that penetrates, scores, and makes plays off the dribble. That’s kind of like asking Steve Novak to create for himself and shoot off the dribble or asking Mitchell to start shooting turn around off balance jumpers from mid range. It’s going wreak havoc on their efficiency because they don’t have that skill at an adequate level to even consider it

As the guy who was crucified here for having the temerity to insist that Frank never was and will never be a PG, I still believe he can be a valuable player in the correct role, specifically as a 3-and-D low-usage opportunistic wing. He’s two years ahead of where Andre Roberson and Shump were when they came into the league and he has similarities to both. I’t trade him for a 1st in a heartbeat and probably for a low 2nd. I’d also dump his salary for a more promising young player. But I’m also cool with giving him one more chance without any illusion that he should play a single minute as a lead guard.

I’d be fine with sticking with Frank if they weren’t going into “Win now” mode this upcoming season. Since they are, they probably might as well trade him for cap purposes. $5 million can buy you a couple of decent back of the rotation veteran players. You know, guys you could get by doubling the vet minimum. Or one better than back of the rotation veteran players.

Someone out there thinks they can tu ry n Frank around. The question is how desperate are they for that attempt? Not very.

On the other hand, the Knicks need to dump Frank’s salary to keep Trier. You’ll likely see the Knicks give up another asset–a 2nd round pick–just to have another team take Frank into their cap space. The Knicks have no leverage for this trade.

If you think Frank is divisive on this blog, you should read the thread about him possibly getting traded on P & T!

I think people who defend Frank are in love with the idea of Frank. And the idea of Frank is quite intriguing. A super lanky elite defender who can guard 4 positions, plays team oriented ball and can cover PG duties.

The problem is that besides the defense, he’s shown really nothing else. I want to like Frank so much. He seems like a geniunely really nice kid and I do think injuries and confidence have held him back. Maybe he can have more success on a team like The Spurs. Maybe he can turn into a serviceable NBA player in 3 or 4 years. But I think its time to cut our losses. Not every draft pick is going to turn out good. Its just the reality of the draft.

If we can get a late first round or early second round pick, I think we go for it.

And it just brings me back to my recent mode of thinking about how it might be easier for teams to draft good players later in the draft these days cause you don’t have to take someone because they’re a consensus top pick. You can go for upperclassmen who are more polished or risky dues with homerun potential like Mitch.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 1:04 pm

I’d be fine with sticking with Frank if they weren’t going into “Win now” mode this upcoming season. Since they are, they probably might as well trade him for cap purposes.

And that is the biggest risk we face as a organization long term. Not specific to Frank, but in general with all our young players. If you bring in Durant and blow up all the benefits of the “incompetency based and KP injured tanking” we’ve done, you give yourself a very short window and then start from zero again in 3-4 years depending on how long Durant stays at “end of the peak” phase. That’s not a sustainable model.

But you can’t have him driving and shooting mid range, posting up smaller players, creating off the dribble etc.. like last year and expect his TS% to rise to adequate levels given where he is now. That was a total shit show and misuse by Fizdale and Knicks in his developmen

This year Frank increased his percentage of 3PA (.314 to .408), drastically cut down on 16<3 shots (.268 to .121), and cut down a bit on his shots at the rim (.174 to .152). It sounds like to this extent this misuse took place, it wasn't even significant enough to tangibly register.

I'm not gonna get on you too much because, to be honest, it also felt to me like he was taking more kind of pseudo isolation shots this year. It ain't in the numbers though. During his rookie season, it was common to see people complaining that his role wasn't expansive enough (“he’s just sitting in the corner!”). Occam’s Razor suggests we have a bad player on our hands, regardless of his role.

And that is the biggest risk we face as a organization long term. Not specific to Frank, but in general with all our young players.

We only have one young player who is worth caring about. We didn’t tank hard enough for too long, and so now we have a cupboard with one asset in it. Maybe we’ll add a second asset in this year’s draft.

We should have been collecting assets instead of investing resources in the Arron Afflalos and Joakim Noahs of the world, then maybe we would have more than one decent young player on the roster, and it might make sense to be concerned about the team’s young core. But we didn’t, so ther is no young core to speak of, so if you have to “start from scratch” it shouldn’t take too long to get back to where we are right now.

If you bring in Durant and blow up all the benefits of the “incompetency based and KP injured tanking” we’ve done, you give yourself a very short window and then start from zero again in 3-4 years depending on how long Durant stays at “end of the peak” phase. That’s not a sustainable model.

Except that there’s been zero benefits because this franchise never properly went for a rebuild, and only decided to do so in the damn year where the lottery odds where changed.

The benefits we’ve reaped from those years are Kevin Knox, Frank Ntilikina, this year’s 3rd pick on an arguably 2 man draft and cap space. Bringing Durant and other stars would at least use one of the assets they’ve built in those years, because two of those assets are garbage players and the 3rd pick is uncertain.

There’s no “starting again from zero” because we ARE STILL at zero. If they had properly tanked and we had Fox and Doncic on the team what you’re saying would make sense.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 1:16 pm

@43

If I was Frank’s agent I’d try to convince him to ask for a trade. His career would be better served in a patient organization like the Spurs or Raptors. He’d at least have a chance to fulfill his potential. He’s being ruined in NY so far.

In NY talk they talk a good game about defense, building the right way, not taking any short cuts etc.. but the team, media, and fans have the patience of a fruit fly.

If he loves NY, the Nets would also be a good place to go fro development, but I doubt we’ll trade with the Nets. I have a feeling he’s going to wind up in Dallas or Philadelphia where there seems to be some interest.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 1:21 pm

@47 @48

We can debate if they selected the right players in their rebuild, but we were ranked 2nd in KP’s year and selected 4th. We have since added 3 more top 10 lottery picks despite missing one. If that’s not starting from zero, please don’t let me experience zero in this lifetime.

In any lottery system there is no guarantee you select first or get a good player most of the time. That’s why it takes so long to build that way (that and waiting for teenagers to get good)

The scenario I am worrying about is adding Durant + 1 and then selling off all those kids for the veteran role players we need to compete for a championship before those kids shave and reach full puberty so we can know if any of them will be good.

If I was Frank’s agent I’d try to convince him to ask for a trade. His career would be better served in a patient organization like the Spurs or Raptors. He’d at least have a chance to fulfill his potential. He’s being ruined in NY so far.

Strat’s fan fiction where there are all these contenders just dying to get a taste of Frank Ntilikina is one of his more entertaining things.

In any lottery system there is no guarantee you select first or get a good player most of the time. That why’s takes so long to build that way (that and waiting for teenagers to get good)

With a few less Courtney Lee-fueled marginal wins we might have De’Aaron Fox instead of Frank and Wendell Carter instead of Knox. Then, perhaps, we could have a real conversation about this trade off. We didn’t though, so the only thing worth debating is whether or not we should trade the guy we found in the second round. The other guys are bums.

I wouldn’t dump Frank right now. Not because he’s good (he’s not), but because his value to us slightly exceeds the value of whatever we’d get for him this minute.

If he improves his 3-pointer to passable and agrees to never take any shots other than catch-and-shoot 3s and uncontested transition layups, he could function as a 10th man on a Durant/Kyrie team. We will likely have no depth and will need bodies. There’s a universe in which he could come in for a few minutes a game to defend the opponent’s best guard, who is inevitably torching Kyrie.

He could also be useful later in the offseason as salary ballast for a bigger trade. We might as well hold on to him for now and find out. It’s not like his value is going to get worse over the course of the offseason.

So derozan was mentioned as a comp for barrett yesterday and i think that’s an ok comp… but comps are going to be hard since there hasn’t been many freshman who fit his profile exactly…. and that’s basically a SF who both scores very well with an inconsistent jumper.. and passes very well but also a bit deficient defensively….

i looked across a number of categories to see what the possibilities are.. i went as far back as 1990 and looked at SG/SFs picked in the first round with freshman year stat lines with the following benchmarks:

nobody fit that profile exactly but there's a bunch who came close and they're listed below…. i put them into percentiles based on their career outcomes… but this is a back of the napkin modeling so take it with some grain of salt…

0-20% percentile
Low – derrick williams
High – jeff green

this what a bust outcome looks like… if rj doesn't pass/handle well and if his scoring doesn't develop then you're looking at a journey man type… mind you both of these guys are nba players so you should have some level of comfort that he won't be a frank/knox type of pick.. but if barrett doesn't improve at all then his career will sorta look like these guys…

this is where we get into the bulk of the likely outcomes… here you start to get an idea of what the upside is if barrett's game develops well… if his shot materializes the upside is steve smith… if he tempers his usage he's probably jefferson… if the shot doesn't come and he keeps shooting and missing then he's probably rose/jrich.. You might think this list isn't all that sexy but this is actually pretty solid considering that he showed a lot more scoring ability than these guys at the same age and hence some upside left… and that’s:

This is probably as unlikely as the bust outcomes.. But they come close… however in order to get to these outcomes you have to assume that barrett’s low def numbers are the result of being in the same lineups as zion/reddish/bolden/jones who took a lot of stl and blk opps away AND his offensive game develops…. That’s a lot to ask but before you dismiss these as possibilities… you have to realize that even mega prospects like these guys were(pierce was but he slipped for stupid reasons) were not perfect as freshman…. george and kawhi came from much lower and look where they are now…. Derozan was terrible his freshman year…. Ppl can develop in reasonably unpredictable ways…

So all-in-all rj’s a good prospect… culver has a lot more favorable comps and none of the unfavorable ones though which is why I have him higher but rj would be a top 5 pick in just about any draft….

No one on this list came out as freshman… and again no one is a perfect comp and the future is never set in stone and given rj’s uniqueness there is some volatility in the outcomes… but ALL of these guys came in as rotation players right away.. How he actually develops is anyone’s guess and if anyone says they know for sure that he’ll be a bad shooter based on his ft%… well everyone on this list shot under 70% at some point… so at least consider that he has a decent shot at figuring out that part of his game… and if he does he’s gonna be a really really good player…

I think everyone is wrong about Barrett. He hit all of Ed Weiland’s benchmarks for being a good SF prospect, no red flags. I would love his defensive numbers and 3pt% to be higher but if they were he’d be taken number 2 or even be in the conversation for #1. I very much like Ed Weiland’s work around the draft and he says the things you look for in a small forward are:
2pt%: < 50% – RJ – 52.9%
3pt% < 30% – RJ – 30.8%
Pts: < 18 – RJ – 25.7
ASB: < 5 – RJ – 6.4
Ast/TO: < 0.6 – RJ – 1.33

The only benchmark he barely passed was 3pt% but he easily hit all the other as a young freshman in the ACC. On top of that his pts greatly exceeded the benchmark and Weiland said that his biggest surprise when doing the research was that scoring frequently in college is more an indicator of success that scoring efficiently.

you have to realize that even mega prospects like these guys were(pierce was but he slipped for stupid reasons) were not perfect as freshman…. george and kawhi came from much lower and look where they are now…. Derozan was terrible his freshman year…. Ppl can develop in reasonably unpredictable ways…

I appreciate all your commentary on this, you bring a fresh perspective to analyzing young players. But this particular analysis of RJ doesn’t seem to be really telling me much, it’s “if he does this and this then he might turn into this” and “I dunno, could be Derrick Williams, could be Paul Pierce.”

I’m not so sure I’m any more informed about RJ Barrett after all that.

As the guy who was crucified here for having the temerity to insist that Frank never was and will never be a PG, I still believe he can be a valuable player in the correct role, specifically as a 3-and-D low-usage opportunistic wing. He’s two years ahead of where Andre Roberson and Shump were when they came into the league and he has similarities to both.

Roberson is an interesting comp – my sense is that Frank is not nearly as big as Roberson, and so prob would still be overmatched against the monster 3/4 hybrid wing players that everyone needs to stop (ie. Lebron, Giannis, Durant, etc). Not only is he not as big as Roberson, he’s not as good as Roberson defensively either. No doubt Frank is better at ballhandling and shooting that Roberson (or at least has a lot more potential there), but Roberson is great on cuts and around the rim, whereas Frank is basically allergic to the restricted area.

Yeah i put down LRMaM and Aminu precisely because they are defense first, barely acceptable shooters — I kinda see that as Frank’s most likely successful outcome. Aminu is making $7.5MM/year which is probably a fair deal for both sides. Mbah a moute has pretty much been a vet’s minimum guy. So just looking at it money-ball style, there’s not that much to be lost by just letting Frank go – it’s not like he’s any sort of bargain on a rookie contract. In fact, the guy who will likely replace him (Kadeem Allen) in the rotation is better AND cheaper.

In NY talk they talk a good game about defense, building the right way, not taking any short cuts etc.. but the team, media, and fans have the patience of a fruit fly.

1) The franchise has been helmed by morons for two decades. The best executive of the bunch — Donnie Walsh — traded four players and four draft picks for Carmelo Anthony and an end-of-career ex-star who was amnestied for no good reason at all.

In other words, he [Jim Dolan] called me at a certain point… he was out there, and I was reading about it and all that… and he said ‘Well here’s what it’s gonna take, and I don’t think it’ll get done if you don’t do this.’ And it was the deal kinda that got done. And he said – might’ve been the same or another phone call – and he said, ‘Look Donnie, I’m not a basketball guy. I can’t make this decision. So this is your decision.’ And I said ‘Ok, I wanna call Mike D’Antoni.’ Mike didn’t really wanna do it either. And I thought, “We’re never gonna get a guy like Carmelo Anthony if we don’t do this deal… and so I’m gonna do it.” And I made up my mind. I kinda knew I’d have to give up Gallinari, who I loved, and Wilson Chandler who I loved too. I thought any deal we were gonna do to get Carmelo that was gonna happen. But I didn’t like giving up Moz, and I didn’t like giving up, uh… the little point guard.

Read that shit again, because those are the words of the smartest roster manager we’ve had up until the current regime. “The little point guard,” indeed.

2) The media is composed of blowhards, idiots and blowhard idiots. They’re meaningless.

3) The fan consensus is also irrelevant, if not imaginary. It is, however, sick of losing.

Ntilikina showed no improvement whatsoever this year and continues to be perhaps the single worst player in the NBA over the last two years. There is no reason to be patient with his development when it’s abundantly clear that he’s…

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 3:23 pm

It’s how much of our future they are willing to blow up to win now once they have Durant (assuming they do). There’s a point at which I would start thinking we were mortgaging too much given our chances of actually winning it all.

Certain people think they can coach instincts and ball skills like it’s tying one’s shoes. If the strategy is to sign 18-year-old abject, indisputably-terrible scrubs and give them two full contracts before their prime years, all in the hopes that by year 10 they’re actually good, the strategy is fucked up beyond repair. Rookie contracts are too valuable (see: Pascal Siakam) to waste on four years of 17-win-contributor production.

It’s becoming more and more clear that older, already-developed players are likely the new market inefficiency (outside of #1 picks gifted to grifting franchises like New Orleans and Cleveland) and yet we’re still here trying to figure out if a career .430 TS% shooter (2610 minutes played) will someday be worthy of his third contract extension.

What if, like, we actually try to draft and sign good, productive players instead of squinting at the dumpster fire and calling it a space heater?

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 3:34 pm

Strat’s fan fiction where there are all these contenders just dying to get a taste of Frank Ntilikina is one of his more entertaining things.

Dallas and Orlando are pretty much on record wanting Frank and there were reports out of Philly yesterday that were tossing out ideas for which picks they could give up to get him. There’s interest from people that value his defense and that are willing to try to develop his offense over several years. But they are not stupid. They know the Knicks have the patience of a fruit fly and won’t develop him. So they are going to wait until the Knicks have destroyed his value and are desperate enough that they can get a good deal. Maybe that will be draft day.

“If they had properly tanked and we had Fox and Doncic on the team what you’re saying would make sense.”

Think about that for a minute – ouch!

The refs sure were whistle happy last night. In between whistles there was actually an exciting game taking place. These have been some of the most exciting NBA playoffs in recent memory. Lot’s of OT games.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 3:41 pm

@69

I think you have the right compromise there.

Virtually all the players with star potential are going to come out at 18-19. That’s why everyone is drafting kids and allowing good but older players to drop. But there’s a point in the draft where the probability of getting that future star drops low enough, you are better off getting current production than praying. The debate is where that point is. Right now there’s probably too much fishing going on, but it has to be more than just the almost guaranteed franchise changing top pick.

“If Frank just adds a three point shot and fixes his dribble a little he’ll be good.”

Okay, sure! That is probably true. The problem is, you can say those things about any shitty, failed prospect. If any player stops being shitty at the things at which they are shitty, then yes, that player will improve! It’s meaningless. With this mindset there is no such thing as a young player without promise.

And sure, guards take longer to develop. And Frank is young. Those are variables that need to be factored in. But he is still terrible compared to other guards his age. He is like a 21 year old who is hitting .220 in low A ball. Sure, he’s only 21, but there are other 21 year olds that are raking in AA. Odds are that the kid hitting .220 in low A is not going to be a better player than the kid the same age who is mashing in AA.

with unique players you have a lot of unknowns… and so i would love to say that barrett will definitely be this or that but he’s neither so good or so bad where i can say that with any confidence…. i think most ppl who think can’t really know either… but i think it’s productive to go a little deeper to see who he’s actually most similar to…

and i will say that his comp list is pretty good…. if your base case is an nba rotation level player then that’s about as good as you can hope for… even zion has someone like michael beasley you can point to if you want to be pessimistic….

so i’ll tell you what it what tells me…. barrett’s success hinges largely on his outside shot…. that anyone could tell you… but even if it doesn’t develop you very likely have some sort of useful starter… something like jalen rose… and if the shot develops… and it’s reasonable to think that it’s very possible.. that’s when you start seeing his upside start to materialize….

and that upside is a very valuable player… i know ppl want an mvp candidate out of the #3 pick… but a top flight scorer with an ability to create for others at a non-pg position is incredibly rare…. someone who has a good shot at being top 5 at his position is not something you pass up unless you have a VERY good reason to…. and guys like brandon clarke or deandre hunter or probably even someone like bradley beal is NOT that… this is what having the #3 pick gets you…

embiid had a broken back.. love was a weak defender… paul was too small and didn’t score well… westbrook didn’t do much of anything… rj may not be that kind of difference maker but the point is that you shouldn’t let perfect get in the way of good… and i think most on this board have a very big infatuation with perfect players… if they’re not perfect everyone else is the same… and i don’t think that’s the case… there’s an upside with rj that you could very much regret…

Dallas and Orlando are pretty much on record wanting Frank and there were reports out of Philly yesterday that were tossing out ideas for which picks they could give up to get him. There’s interest from people that value his defense and that are willing to try to develop his offense over several years.

Do you have a source for any of this? I just searched and the only thing I could find was this Sixers blog talking about how the Sixers should not trade for Frank due to all of the obvious reasons (and they weren’t responding to any particular rumor).

Dallas and Orlando are pretty much on record wanting Frank and there were reports out of Philly yesterday that were tossing out ideas for which picks they could give up to get him.

As smart as Dallas looks for trading for Doncic, they also traded for an injured tall man who’s about to get *~*paid*~*. And Orlando just traded for Fultz, who looks irreparably broken himself. These might be the trade partners we’ve been looking for.

Virtually all the players with star potential are going to come out at 18-19.

What about the idea that you draft low-risk role players and keep cap space open to selectively add bona-fide superstars when it’s appropriate, and then use Bird Rights to re-sign the role players?

Like, imagine that the Knicks had not drafted these projects like Knox and Ntilikina and instead had drafted solid players in the .150 WS48 or 2.5 BPM range. Imagine that the roster were replete with those players on rookie contracts and you still had room for two max players. Wouldn’t that be good? Larry Nance is not a superstar but he was 23 during his first season. Willie Cauley-Stein, Montrezl Harris, Pascal Siakam, Richaun Holmes — all >22. Jakob Poeltl, 21. Brogdon, 24. Gobert was 21 himself. I’m using a trackpad on a laptop so it’s hard for me to do a deeper dive, but I’m seeing a lot of productive players drafted later and older.

Now again, those are not two-way, top-tier superstars (although I would kill to have Gobert and Siakam on my team). But they all would have been better value than the scrubs we’ve wasted picks on. And being that cap space is easier to predict and control than the career trajectory of an 18-year-old rookie, maybe we could lessen draft risk and prepare for big FA signings by constructing something better than a 17-win team to add them to.

If you were to dream up an unrealistic scenario in which Frank becomes an impact player, it might not even be the one most often thrown out there. 3-and-D wings are being phased out of the playoffs at this point. But he is 6’6 and allegedly has playmaking skills. He can defend the post very well. If I were Frank, I’d focus on becoming a better rebounder and try to turn myself into the poor man’s Draymond Green. The mentality gap between the two seems impossible to bridge, though.

i looked across a number of categories to see what the possibilities are.. i went as far back as 1990 and looked at SG/SFs picked in the first round with freshman year stat lines with the following benchmarks:
2p fg%> .500
pts p40 > 20.0
reb p40 > 7.0
asts p40 > 3.0
stls + blks < 2.0
ft% < 70%

Hmm, no 3FG%, nothing to indicate jump shooting ability? I’m reading he’s not able to hit a jumper outside of 10ft. I guess these things aren’t that important for SG’s and SF’s – learn something new every day. But this thread is a hotbed of hot takes:

Ntilikina showed no improvement whatsoever this year and continues to be perhaps the single worst player in the NBA over the last two years.

Hmmm, weird that the team’s been better when the worst player in the NBA has been on the court over both seasons. It’s like maybe defense might matter? Dunno, I mean I’m learning so much in this thread.

Look, if any of Frank/DSJ/Knox/#3 pick are on this team this season something’s gone terribly wrong but people need to stop with these lousy hyperbolic and cherry-picked takes.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 4:44 pm

Do you have a source for any of this? I just searched and the only thing I could find was this Sixers blog talking about how the Sixers should not trade for Frank due to all of the obvious reasons (and they weren’t responding to any particular rumor).

There was “blue checkmark” source out of Philly that was retweeted that was talking about possible picks that could be used, but I’m not going to spend a lot of time looking for it. They may be related.

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 4:49 pm

@76

As you know, I have no problem with any of the potential paths to heaven. I have a problem with saying we have to tank for 5 years and follow the 76ers model. That can work also, but to exclude other value oriented scenarios when the opportunities present themselves is not a very good idea. The idea is get better with good value contracts.

3p shooting is very volatile…. it’s volatile even with nba usage…. and it’s even more volatile when college players are shooting ~50-100 in a season…. it’s not indicative of much which is why ppl look at ft%… smith and jefferson didn’t have <70% their freshman years but they each shot sub 70% later in their college careers…. i don't know why you want to handwave everything else based on one metric when they're pretty similar all things considered…

and i don't know what you're reading… but barrett can hit a jumpshot… he's not shaq where he's getting all his numbers in the paint… it's just not consistent and he has a shot selection problem… he has a low release point.. it's a bit slow… it's a bit flat.. but it's not like that all the time… his problem is consistency… and consistency on a jumpshot isn't the most impossible thing to develop… it's actually the one skill if you had to choose to be deficient in to bet on developing….

what in the world has happened to chad green…i can’t believe any one is simply that “unlucky”…i’m really surprised his incredible drop off this season isn’t due to some ailment…totally amazed boone keeps sending him to the mound…he should not leave triple a for the next couple of months…he’s given up at least one earned run in 8 of his 13 appearances this year…yeah, let not use that guy for a while…

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 5:35 pm

I didn’t even see this when I posted my unsolicited advice to Frank earlier. Time to get out of NY and give himself a chance to be developed properly by a good long term thinking organization. I knew he was smart.

Definitely a major error on the part of Frank’s agent that he wasn’t able to hack basketballreference.com and thus give his client some trade value

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 5:48 pm

We are supposed to be rebuilding with youth but so far Porzingis and Ntilikina both asked for trades. I’m supposed to believe that everything is all peachy in Knicks land? I feel sorry for Barrett. He seems like a good kid.

This is true but you fail to look at his complete outside shooting profile: 3FG%, FT%, spot-up%, off-the dribble%. When someone is lousy or meh at ALL of them, that’s very relevant for an SG/SF. You also didn’t include turnovers. It appears you are cherry-picking stats to place him in the best possible light. TBH, I’d place more weight on Frank’s and Z-man’s predictable optimistic post-draft takes that he’s got the heart of a lion and a Einsteinian IQ than a flawed stats review.

Like I wrote a couple of days ago, I could be encouraged – indeed want to be encouraged – if somebody presented some more compelling stats. At the moment, it looks like the main argument is that he’s got an NBA physique and he scores. But then I look at these Synergy stats as of 3/16:
HC offense: 54th percentile
Spotup: 53rd percentile
ISO: 26-60, 59th percentile
PnR: 65th percentile
Cuts: 20th percentile
Off screens: 12-37, 20th percentile
Handoffs: 14-41, 30th percentile
Finishing at rim: 53%, 45th percentile

Stratomatic "I'm tired of the Knicks paying lip service to DEFENSE. Get defenders & two-way players. Then play them! May 20, 2019 at 5:57 pm

Definitely a major error on the part of Frank’s agent that he wasn’t able to hack basketballreference.com and thus give his client some trade value

He should start by deleting BPM, WS48, PER and all the other garbage “all in one” stats and show highlights of his defense on Harden and say “this can be yours every night” if you would just stop trying to turn him into a scorer. Go get Durant and no defense Irving for that. :-)

He should start by deleting BPM, WS48, PER and all the other garbage “all in one” stats and show highlights of his defense on Harden and say “this can be yours every night” if you would just stop trying to turn him into a scorer. Go get Durant and no defense Irving for that. :-)

Yes, Frank Ntilikina’s agent should brag about how James Harden averages a mere 43/7/7 with a 60% TS against his client.

One thing’s for sure: if you stick Frank on James Harden, Harden is not scoring a SINGLE POINT above 61!

Frank was set back by both injuries and a management change. He can still be a good player. The team played more smoothly with him on the floor as point guard. But Fizdale was willing to go with a defense first lineup for only four or five games the entire season. So Frank was forced to switch positions. He also lost time to offense first point guards that weren’t any better than him. They just had different flaws than him. That’s a lot to put on a very young sophomore player.

R.J. appears to be basically Tyreke Evans with a few tweaks: better from 3 but worse from the stripe, better on the boards but much worse at forcing turnovers. You could do a lot worse than ‘Reke, whose rookie year seemed to herald an All-NBA caliber career. If not for his character issues, it very well might have.

There’s one thing on R.J. that is really a bright red flag to me — that abysmal steal rate suggests someone who isn’t a plus athlete, and I don’t know how one becomes a star NBA wing without elite athleticism, ballhandling, or shooting.

Anyway, it’s not that RJ is a terrible prospect. Its that RJ looks a lot like a high scoring, low-efficiency player who can’t play defense, but will get paid because he’s still young and was drafted high.

Furthermore, the #3 pick this year saddles us with a player who has negligible value over the next string of picks. We won the right to pay RJ Barrett more money for a similar level of projected value as the 4 or 5 picks. RJ has more perceived value than Culver and likely makes a better trade candidate than his actual value projects.

@101 Yep, looks like I mistyped those, but my analysis below is indeed based on RJ’s being alarmingly low relative to Tyreke, and most other elite wing prospects.

And I agree- an inefficient volume scorer who puts up decent counting stats but isn’t a defensive standout is exactly the kind of guy our FO overvalues, and I can definitely see this turning into a Wiggins-like situation. For this reason, I’m really hoping we trade the pick. Harsh as it may be to say, this was really a 1-player draft. Zion’s separation from the field is just that massive, and there’s a reason landing #3 felt like more of a gut punch to many of us as dropping to #4 did in 2015.

I dunno, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. RJ sure does look like an inefficient volume scorer who doesn’t really defend enough, and I’m not really moved by the “Steve Nash’s godson” intangibles stuff.

I understand the arguments for trading the # 3 pick but just want to point out the irony here. Many people have clamored for The Knicks to process and tank and get as high of a pick as possible and to develop young players so they rebuild “the right way.” We did that and now everyone is immediately saying to trade the number 3 pick because the consensus 3rd pick isn’t their favorite player.

RJ would be a top 5 pick in most drafts! He played one season in college. Its crazy how quickly people are ready to write someone off because some of this stats aren’t their ideal. That’s why he’s a prospect and not a season NBA veteran all-star.

synergy stats is another thing in a given season that’s pretty volatile even with an nba sample..

i’m not doing anything fancy here… the methodology has been out there quite some time.. so i’m not inventing anything new… i’m basically tweaking an already strong model.. and i’ve been doing it a long awhile with pretty good success..

and the reason it’s strong is because a lot of the advanced stats that rely on efficiency don’t really translate that well… well they translate to a certain extent but the 3p shooting part is precisely the reason why they’re not all that reliable…

lonzo ball was a 40% shooter on a ton of attempts… he also shot 70% on his 2p attempts… that is a ton of efficiency! how much of that translated? not much… why? because none of the advanced stats show you that he basically got all his 2p attempts in transition which hid his poor scoring ability when creating for himself… pts per 40 captures that and showed a guy who was a lot more riskier than a consensus #2 pick should’ve been which is why i had him behind every other lotto guard in that draft…

you can absolutely do a deeper dive… and synergy stats can tell you something… but you also have to realize the limitation of it… college situations are not going to be the same as in the pro’s… there’s a lot more set rigid plays.. there’s less space to work with… and yes players also improve.. what you see in synergy is not some playbook for a player for their career…. and neither are there box score stats… but we have some reasonable projectability into that than anything else…

you cannot just say he will be a bad shooter and therefore he will be bad… and it’s definitely not clear that he’s such a bad shooter that he can never be good either.. there have been players just like rj who couldn’t shoot and had very good careers… and there have been players who are just like rj who shot well… so i don’t find your arguments compelling…

Frank probably will suck for at least a couple more years. I’d be pleasantly surprised if we could get even a 2nd rounder for him, given his salary. It’s pretty much like trying to trade Ron Baker at the salary he was getting paid.

Sadly, I’m with strat in that I think he will possibly be a rotation player at some point. I just disagree that it will be any time soon, i.e. on his rookie deal, although it is possible in the abstract. It was just so fucking dumb to draft him with the other choices available. I think I said at the time that it was likely that at least 10 players drafted after him would have better NBA careers. Turns out I could have said 20 and that would still be low.

For the record, I’m very down on DSJ. Liked him pre-draft but he and his broken shot are dreadful to watch.

I’m not as down on Knox. Although he may be gone by July, so whatever.

But that’s the thing, man. We didn’t “process” and tank. We’ve kept attempting to compete, landing high picks only to the extent that said attempts have been spectacular failures. We only bottomed out this year because KP’s injury pretty much forced our hand.

Moreover, the process is only half about losing games – it’s also about using cap room to accumulate assets in return for taking other teams’ bad contracts. This is how the Nets have made so much progress out of Billy King-induced purgatory despite a lack of picks, and it’s something we’ve failed to do. Instead, our cap space has done to bad contracts for mediocre vets that have weakened our stock of draft assets.

I’m in favor of a trade because instead of adding RJ to to the promising young core we’d likely have if we’d picked higher in the years since drafting KP, we’re adding him to a promising second rounder and a bunch of prospects ranging from mediocre to terrible. Since the cupboard is so bare, there isn’t much opportunity cost to going into full-on win-now mode around a pair of superstars, if we can get them.

If we’d landed Zion I would be 100% against a trade, because I think he’s a LeBron caliber prospect and a player like that on a rookie contract is literally priceless, the most valuable asset there can be in the NBA.

If I thought the possibility of us actually doing a proper process was on the table, I’d actually rather we do that than go full win-now, because I don’t think we’ll be able to assemble a true contender around KD/Kyrie before they become bad contracts. Even with the lotto odds, I think the process is still a rational strategy for a team with infinite resources like us, because it caps how far you can fall in the draft. History has shown our FO to be incapable planning such a long-term strategy, however, let alone actually executing it, so I’m all aboard the KD/Kyrie/Beal train.

I agree with almost all of #111, with the caveat that adding talents like KD and Kyrie for just money is really a unique opportunity. It almost certainly gives you a better chance at a title in the next ten years than even the most well-executed rebuild.

Choosing between that path and a full, Sixers esque rebuild isn’t easy but if you think your front office can competently find production on the cheap after hitting the cap, I think you have to with the former. Can ours? ¯\_(?)_/¯

I agree with most of what you say here, but regarding Lonzo Ball, I don’t think his shooting in the NBA could have been predicted just by differences in shot selection. He shot 67% on free throws in college, better than RJ. His nosedive to a DeAndre Jordan-like 44% from the stripe over 2 NBA seasons has to be more than just variance; it seems like one of those Marquelle Fultz-esque mental or biomechanical things.

I think Grunwald was probably better than Walsh. Both of their worst moves were clearly driven by Dolan, to an absurd degree. Both made bad moves apart from their Dolan-driven moves, though. Of the two, though, I think Grunwald was a bit more in keeping with the modern NBA. Walsh was out there trading for Anthony Randolph after signing Amar’e Stoudemire without consulting D’Antoni and D’Antoni’s like, “You get that there’s no way that I’m playing this guy, right? So why in the world did you trade one of our best assets for him?”

I know we didn’t process but we did bottom out this year with the worst record in the league and # 3 was a very likely outcome and now we are basically all wanting to trade away the consensus 3rd best prospect in the draft bc he doesn’t fit some people’s statistical profile of what a good player is. RJ Barret could easily turn into an all star and from what I can read, the biggest knock people have on him is that he’s not a great shooter. Other than that, the other knocks are efficiency, which is tied into shooting, and that he might not be great at defense, although he isn’t a bad defender.

Why not draft him, let him be the back up for KD and learn on the job? That way if he does turn out to be good, we got a nice young player on a rookie contract with his bird rights who will sign his second contract when KD and Irving are old?

Also, semi related. If Philly tops out as a 50 win team that gets to the second round, would that make the process worth it? Cause that might be where they’re headed….

You get that the Knicks are adding Kevin Durant and another max player this offseason, right? That’s precisely why people are down with trading RJ Barrett. To analyze people wanting to trade RJ Barrett without taking into consideration the fact that the Knicks will be adding Kevin Durant and another max player is, well, not a good idea.

In other words, if things were different, people would react differently. Different situations shockingly result in different positions. If the Knicks were rebuilding and they traded RJ Barrett for, say, Bradley Beal, then that would be madness. But different situations result in different takes on things.

So saying, “People have wanted to rebuild for years, but now want to trade RJ Barrett?” as if they’re contrary positions is just foolishness.

I am definitely in the keep Barrett and most of our youth camp. We could jettison them all and get more productive veterans but they would all have zero upside and be hired guns simply chasing a ring, or we could sign Durant and Irving and try and build a longterm thinking team that is just as interested at winning next year as building a team that can win over the next decade. Even if that team is a bit worse over the next couple years keeping our young players and hoping a couple of them turn into productive starters that we can both be invested in and can keep for a long time is much preferable to bringing in a bunch of solid but unexciting veterans to chase a title as fast as possible.

I might be the only one but I didn’t really like the 2012 Knicks. I liked Pablo and Chandler and maybe Novak and Copeland a bit, but t wasn’t very fun to root for and completely collapsed after one year. If we trade away all our youth chasing the Covingtons of the world we might be better next year but we will have a very empty cupboard in three or four years when Durant starts to decline.

Keep Barrett, Knox, Frank, and Smith Jr. and see if any of them continue to develop. They are all still under 21 and long way from showing us their longterm value.

You get that the Knicks are adding Kevin Durant and another max player this offseason, right? That’s precisely why people are down with trading RJ Barrett. To analyze people wanting to trade RJ Barrett without taking into consideration the fact that the Knicks will be adding Kevin Durant and another max player is, well, not a good idea.

Not to mention pick 3 is likely going to be used (if it is going to be traded) in any potential AD deal, so it’s not exactly being traded out for a package of scrubs.

That being said, even trading down from 3 for multiple picks/future picks is still compatible with the rebuilding mantra; so whichever way you look at it trading the pick isn’t an outrageous proposition. All really depends on how much you like Barrett I guess.

2) Part of me thinks RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson on $10M AAV over the next three years is an unbelievable value, but then the other part of me thinks it would literal insanity to not add prime Anthony Davis if we’re going all in on a championship. I’m pretty sure I’m RJ Barrett’s biggest fan on Knickerblogger and if push came to shove, I would not trade our young guys for Anthony Davis. I don’t think you can make a poor decision either way, though.

I think a lot of this was related to the lingering groin injury. He also had god awful BABIP luck last year, which as you can see is turning around as expected. Between that and the injuries, I think people lost their damn minds over a frustrating but easily explainable bump in the road in an otherwise awesome career.

Yikes, you have to feel some sympathy for the fans of whoever is up against the Warriors when their big 3 are intact. It must feel like the way it felt when we’d meet the MJ Bulls in the playoffs. Even if it looks like things are going well, you just know in the back of your mind, there is no f’ing way.

Portland blew 17 point leads in game 2, 3 and 4, they really only got themselves to blame.

I’m not saying it’s easy to maintain leads against the Warriors, but they had plenty of chances and gave them up every single time. They scored 16 points in the 4th against the Warriors without Iguodala and Durant, playing Alonzo McKinnie in crunch time, that’s just not acceptable.

It just goes to show how top heavy the West actually is, with the 3rd through 8th teams besides Houston and GSW being complete non-threats in the playoffs, and Houston themselves is clearly a step below the Warriors anyway. I just want this damn Warriors team to go away, I can’t stand dynasties.

Thompson’s D really is good. He may be one-dimensional on offense, but he fits so well with what his team needs.

In the playoffs this year, Thompson hasn’t even been one-dimensional on offense. He’s shot terribly except for a handful of games. Granted, 2 of those games were the last 2 against Houston and were stellar, but most the time he’s shooting a sub 50TS%.

I just think it’s funny, that’s all. This is literally the highest pick we’ve had since Ewing. Even higher than the Porzingis pick. And we’re all immediately cool with trading it. Durant, AD and Kyrie is a higher level of starf*cking than Melo and STAT but at the end of the day it’s still starf*cking.